Marko Murat

Marko Murat (; December 30, 1864 – October 14, 1944) was a Serbian painter from Dubrovnik who spent 20 years of his life in Belgrade, becoming a leading member of the Serbian and Yugoslav art scene at the time, before returning to his home town where he made a substantial mark in art conservation.

Life and work

Murat was born in Šipanska Luka near Dubrovnik in a Catholic family, as his uncle Vice Palunko was a noted priest and assistant bishop, and his older brother Andro Murat also became a priest. After graduation in 1893, he went to Rome and Paris.

In 1894 he moved to Belgrade, where he finally settled in 1898, employed at the Second Belgrade Gymnasium.

At the outbreak of World War I, he was in Dubrovnik, where Austrian authorities arrested him and held him in Hungary until May 1916.

In a personal correspondence with author and critic dr. Milan Šević in 1932, Murat complained that Orthodox Serbs are not acknowledging the Catholic Serb community on the basis of their faith.

Marko Murat was one of the first impressionists in the South Slavic region. Landscapes, portraits and historical compositions were his trademark. His works were displayed at almost every relevant exhibition in Yugoslavia and abroad, in Sofia, Munich, Paris, Rome, Vienna and London.

He died in Dubrovnik. The manuscript of his unfinished autobiography was lost after his death and found only recently; it presents a rare description of everyday life in Dubrovnik in the 1860s and 1870s. It was published in 2007 in the Croatian literary magazine Kolo.